Ephraim Mensah

The Paradox of Mission Education for Contemporary African Identity: Emergence of New Perspectives on Colonialism Reflected in a Narrative Study of Six Ghanaian Scholars Ephraim Mensah

What has Western Colonial/Missionary Education made out of the educated African and what has the educated African made out of it? This is the question being asked and answered in this book. Employing a narrative methodology within qualitative research, the author comes to the conclusion that western researchers have tended to overread colonialism because of their "either/or" approach towards effects of colonization. Based on interviews with five Ghanaian professionals who had experienced Mission Education and drawing on his own story, the author makes the case that the metaphor of "both/and", reflecting the paradoxical co-existence of two cultures, more adequately makes sense of the contemporary Ghanaians' experiences of mission education. Their stories reveal their created African identities as ongoing dialogues within which they appropriate and synthesize elements of each culture - Western and African.